


The Boarding Party

by Happyorogeny



Series: The Illidari [4]
Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Crashing aircraft, Gen, Injury, using goblin tactics to override demonic trickery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-22
Updated: 2018-03-22
Packaged: 2019-04-06 14:19:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14058816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Happyorogeny/pseuds/Happyorogeny
Summary: It turns out Tylus doesn't quite know how to fly this thing.





	The Boarding Party

“Tylus?”

“Aye?”

“That cliff’s looking kinda close.” 

Asha shoved a dead shivarra off the main control console.The Felhammer’s previous pilot left a smear of purple blood on the control panel as she thudded to the floor. Odd. She had turned to them with a dreadful grin as they entered, already bleeding from a self-inflicted wound to the chest.

The demons had quickly realized that they were a boarding party and had fought with brutal savagery to defend their vessel from the Illidari. The close quarters fighting in narrow corridors did not favour the demon hunters, who relied often on their speed and agility to keep out of harms way. Kor’vas lay unconscious from her wounds and Asha could hear Demissya coughing and choking in their makeshift infirmary, having lost a chunk of her neck to a zealous felhound.

She struggled not to go to her, knowing that she spluttered blood. But she had to let the medics do their job. Many of Illidari had been healers, and many more had grown skilled in such arts. It was rare that they lost someone these days, unless the mission went dreadfully wrong.

Izal glided down to join them, gasping as she landed and hunching over to clutch her side. Her ribs had been shattered by a doomlord defending the engine room. No matter- he lay dead by her glaive now and she would be healed by nightfall. Asha laid a wing gently across her back and Izal leaned into her. 

Tylus was not approaching the console with the air of an experienced pilot. Izal’s ears twitched as she peered at the translucent membrane stretching across the front of the ship.

“Is that a mountain?”

“Yes.” Asha cast her eye over the room. One main station in the centre, another to the very front – weapons? - and one against each side wall. Both of those gleamed with an odd red haze in her vision, like bloody fel.

Izal sneezed and then winced as it knocked one of her teeth loose.

“That’s very close.”

Kayn appeared in a flicker of magic and panic.

“You said you could fly this thing!”

“I can!” Tylus growled and hit the console with his wing. “The demon pilot overrode it, it’s locked to outside commands and set to dive.”

Asha squinted at the floor. Veins of green light clustered beneath each control panel and vanished off into the depths of the vessel. A demon ship was uncomfortably close to being a living thing. The eredar seemed to grow them around a crystalline skeleton, metal and mycelium and magic. Instead of wires the ships had thick, gristly nerve-cords. Over time a damaged vessel would gradually repair itself. The Illidari who had been pursued by the ships swore they had a presence and a mind like a living thing.

Asha drove her glaive deep into the floor and grimaced as it parted like particularly tough flesh. The others caught onto her idea quickly enough. Sever the conduit, stop the command and stop the Felhammer’s passage towards the mountainside. Izal growled, threw herself at the wall and tore at a cluster of synaptic cords asunder.

Asha swore she could hear the ship creak and groan as its descent slowed.

But it didn’t stop.

“Ah,” Tylus said, straightening. “That killed the air-sacs.”

“So we are falling rather than diving?” Kayn sounded as if he were checking the price of bacon rather than discussing their imminent deaths.

“I’ll get the wounded on evac bats.” Izal broke into a sprint back into the main ship as Tylus swore savagely and delved into the hole they’d ripped in the floor. Kayn jumped onto the console to peer out the main window onto the mountainside below. It teemed with demons, shrieking and waving sharpened blades.

“Looks like quite the welcoming party down there. Can we rig this to explode?”

But Tylus had the expression of a man with an idea. The muscles of his shoulders flexed as he wrenched a bundle of nerve cords into the air and held them out towards Kayn.

“These smell of shivarra, right? They smell just like the pilot.”

Kayn crouched, spreading his wings for balance.

“Yes- they even-” he frowned. Of all of them he had the sharpest, most detailed magical sight. “It’s the same fel energy signal, just the same, red.”

Tylus spat at the dead demon and eyed the circular wound she’d carved into her sternum, the match of the cross section of the cable.

“She re-runed it to her bio-signature.” Tylus pulled off his eye wrap and passed it to Kayn. “I know a goblin override technique.”

Kayn grabbed his arm.

“What kind of override?”

Tylus sank his teeth into the nerve-cord. The Felhammer lurched to a halt that threw Kayn off the console. Every light in the ship went dark.

It took him three seconds to find his voice.

“Are you dead?” It was more of a courtesy than a question for he could see Tylus aglow with indigo life yet. Kayn eyed him a moment, then flicked the tip of his ear. “Get up.” 

Tylus coughed a mouthful of smoke at him, looking extremely smug despite his singed edges. The nerve-cords oozed something dark and sticky, but the cross section glowed with markings that matched those of an Illidari. 

“That’s a start. What about the cannon?”

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed this come find me at : https://www.tumblr.com/blog/happyorogeny


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